Accident and Coincidence
by Rasdra
Summary: On board the Truth and Reconciliation, the Master Chief finds someone unexpected in the cell block imprisoning Captain Keyes and some marines. Who is this mysterious man that has the Covenant onboard nervous and jittery? Rated T for safety
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer. Don't own anything unfortunately and this is written as a fanfiction. No profit being made. Some words are taken directly from the scene in the game but I plan on this story diverging from the game pretty quickly._

**_Accident and Coincidence_**

_Prologue_

On the Truth and Reconciliation, the Master Chief entered the cell of Captain Keyes and helped him up. He was looking a little roughed up but fortunately, was otherwise uninjured and didn't look like he'd yet been brutalised by the Covenant.

"Coming here was reckless, you two know better than this," he snapped at the Chief before adding a quieter "Thanks,"

As they left the cell and the other freed marines gathered, one of them shouted

"Sir, theres another prisoner over here, I don't recognise him but he looks like he could use some help getting out," a marine shouted. In the back corner of the room, the cell they entered was a little more elaborate than the ones that the UNSC personnel had been kept in. It had a few pieces of damaged covenant tech inside; which was unusual, but more unusual was the prisoner himself.

The man was dressed in a simple cloth tunic and pants with sturdy looking boots. The clothes were stained with blood and blackened in places with burns from plasma weapons, or in this case, more likely plasma torture devices. Despite the stains, the man's wounds looked old and appeared to be healing well except for a few more recent bruises.

More unusual was the bindings. Several of the men were horrified at his treatment and also a little worried at the number of bindings to this man. Why would a 'weak' human warrant such security? It was well known that even the grunts were physically as strong as most humans. Their stocky 5 feet tall bodies were capable of matching all but the stronger soldiers of the UNSC. As for the elites, they surpassed all but the spartans in terms of speed, strength and reflexes.

Despite the man's slight build, he was fastened to the wall by energy binders across his chest, waist, neck, shoulders, thighs, elbows, knees, ankles and wrists. The man was also blindfolded and gagged. In his state of restraint, with very little way of moving, it was difficult to tell if the man was conscious or not.

Why would a human warrant such level of 'care'? Not even a spartan would be able to break out from a single pair of the energy binders, yet this man was practically mummified in them.

"Get him out of those restraints" Keyes ordered and Cortana took the opportunity to speak

"Sir, the control panel in the room is directly tied to this man's restraints. I've scanned the system for information on him but it seems that any information has been isolated to a separate console that is only accessible directly from the Fleet commander's personal console on his ship 'Seeker of Truth.' The only information here is orders to keep him alive and subdued, and to not under any circumstances underestimate him. There are several sirens tied directly to his binders, if even one is disrupted or switched off, the whole ship will go into lockdown and an entire battalion is directed to move in to ensure his cooperation... " she paused from her speech "Sir, I think they're afraid of him and all the security we faced getting here was because of him, your presence is barely a footnote in the records.." she trailed off.

"Never mind that now, Cortana, free him," Keyes ordered

"Yes sir, isolating the alarm systems from the binders... done, now deactivating the binds.."

There was a thump as the man was released from the wall and fell to the ground. One marine went to check him, but then the man stirred and pushed himself up, removing the blindfold and gag as he did so. The man took in a few deep breaths as he centred himself, then opened his eyes to see the group. He stood slowly, stretching as he did so, popping joints and working his muscles into movement after his long period of stillness. His lips turned up into a small smile as he looked at his rescuers, who were looking at him with varying levels of curiosity and suspicion.

"Thanks for the save, the hospitality of the sentients has been a little lacking" he said, his light tone breaking the tension and the men relaxed a little, although the Master Chief remained alert.

"You're welcome, now we need to get off the ship. Marines! Lock and load your weapons and be ready to move." Keyes ordered

"Yes sir!" the marines answered

"While the Covenant had us locked up in here I heard the guards talking about this ring world. They called it Halo."

"Yeah, I can tell you a little about that," the strange man interrupted "It has a deep religious significance to the sentients on board. They were quite determined about stopping you from reaching it, worried that the 'human filth' would taint their precious Journey." he explained "although I don't know what Journey exactly they were referring to,"

"Yes the data I'm analysing from the Covenant Battlenet also implies that Halo is some sort of weapon with a vast amount of power, a number of reports state that they've been looking for the control room to Halo-

"Thats not good, Chief, Cortana, I have a new mission for you, we need to beat the covenant into Halo's control room. Marines, get ready to move." Keyes paused and turned to the stranger again,

"I don't know who you are but for now you're under my command unless you have some sort of priority rank I'm unaware of?" He paused but when the man didn't respond he took it as a negative "We don't have time for debriefing until we get off this ship, but for now may I have your name? I'm Captain Keyes of the ship The Pillar of Autumn of the UNSC and this is the Master Chief who is responsible for all our rescue along with the AI Cortana."

"I'm Obi Wan Kenobi, and as you said Captain, longer introductions aren't quite appropriate right now."


	2. Chapter 1

**Thanks everyone for all your reviews, there's been a great response and I can't reply to the guest reviews. Anyway, here's the next chapter!**

Chapter 1

_Date: Day: Unknown. Month: August. Year: 2552. Location: Seeker of Truth, Fleet of Particular Justice_

Consciousness was slow to return.

Between the moments of endless darkness there was periods of pulsating purple lights and harsh, guttural speech of an alien tongue he didn't understand. And Pain. There was a lot of pain, his whole body felt like one big wound, like every part of his body had been mashed into pulp and then flung around before being put back together with the pieces not quite fitting.

The darkness keeping the pain away couldn't keep him sleeping forever though, and slowly his body healed and his scrambled brain synapses reorganised to something more normal and functional.

He woke up.

The room was dimly lit and had a deep purple tint. The room was small cuboidal in shape and had bare walls of a hard, unfamiliar metallic texture with no windows. There was only one exit, an empty space that had the transparent sheen of some sort of energy shield covering it. He was in a cell. Instinctively, he reached out for the Force. Previous times being imprisoned lead him to expect to be unable to reach the Force, as the methods of blocking a Force-sensitive were no secret and used extensively by criminals and those who regularly clashed with Jedi.

It was with some surprise then, that he felt the comforting presence of the Force immediately about him, although there was something distinctly 'off' about how it felt. He felt the Force, yet he could almost say that it had a different flavour, if the Force could be compared to something as mundane as different tastes.

If the Force was normally apples now it was guava fruit-

-that analogy died just there and he chuckled wryly to himself at the sheer ridiculousness of his thought process. _Comparing the Force to fruit, I must have finally cracked. _He mused to himself.

In essence though, the Force was still the same, but at the same time it felt fundamentally a little bit different. Stretching out his senses, he could almost say that the Force felt older, yet more innocent and somehow wilder. Not that he'd ever had reason to give the Force a personality before. Whatever had happened to land him in this cell must have scrambled his brains more than he realised. The difference in The Force was a puzzle that he decided to set aside for the moment.

He slowly got up, feeling a little stiff from lying at an odd angle in his cell. His body was uninjured, which was surprising considering the pain he remembered being in. Although it was possible that he'd entered a force trance and healed.

Vague memories came flooding back to him of his ship being caught in a space Anomaly that had felt very strong in the Unifying Force. He'd been flying past a region of wild space. He'd then been pulled into the Anomaly and came out the other side feeling like he'd been tossed through several walls. He'd appeared in the centre of a space battle and nearly crashed into the ship of an alien fleet. He'd managed to maneuver just enough to land in a ship hangar, while fighting to remain conscious. He'd managed to escape from his craft barely moments before a large array of aliens blew up his ship. After that he didn't remember anything but he could guess judging from his current location within a cell.

Considering that had been his last memory, he supposed he was lucky to have even woken again. He hadn't recognised any of the alien species that attacked him, and while there was always a new species to meet in the galaxy, it was very rare for one as well travelled as Obi Wan Kenobi to see something completely unfamiliar, let alone several species at the same time.

He was disturbed by the arrival of a squat little alien approaching with water and what he hoped was food. He wasn't sure how long ago his last meal in his star fighter had been but it wasn't recent. Reaching out with the Force, he scanned the creature's thoughts for information, taking care to stay gentle enough for the alien to not realise anything was amiss.

He sighed to himself before sitting down to process the information he'd gleaned, eating the poor but welcome meal. He didn't like peeking into the private thoughts of other beings but exceptions were made to enemies holding him captive. He'd learned he was being held by a group calling themselves The Covenant and he guessed that they were a religious fanatic group of some sort made up of several species of alien. None of the species in the unggoys mind (as that was the name they called their own species) were remotely familiar to him. The unggoy hadn't known a lot of basic, so he couldn't interpret everything he saw, but he'd gotten enough information to realise that The Covenant were waging a theological genocide against the human race at the command of their leaders.

It explained the sick feeling he had in the pit of his stomach that was making him dizzy. As the hour passed, his Force awareness had strengthened to something beyond what he was used to and now he could feel all the death that was occurring around the planet the ship was orbiting. He could feel the Force crying out as significant amounts of life were burned from existence as a ship was destroyed in space or as a city burned on the planet below.

He was jedi, he had to try and help somehow. Guided by the Force, he looked again at the cell he was in and noticed the control panel outside his cell. It took only a little concentration to activate the shield release with aid from the force and he quickly moved outside his cell. The room was a guarded cell block, with several empty cells lining the walls. The only guard was a tall, brightly coloured, blue alien he thought may be what the little ones called sangheili. There was also a group of short little unggoys with triangular tanks on their backs scattered around the room. It was the work of moments to creep behind the blue sangheili and knock him out with a force assisted blow to the back of the head. He couldn't stop the loud sound of the sangheili landing on the ground out cold though, the noise echoing loudly in the room.

It was almost comical how the entire group of little unggoys jumped at his appearance. What wasn't as funny was the instant alarm the little group raised. Babbling in a high pitched language, some pulled out some interesting looking weapons, while a few ran away in fear. Focusing on the threats first, he ripped the weapons from the unggoys' stumpy fingers, dodging a few green bolts that had already been released. He wished he had his lightsaber, but it had been missing since his capture. He hoped it wouldn't be too difficult to find.

Looking around, he didn't spot his saber on any convenient looking wall and was distracted when the unngoys that had ran away returned with reinforcements. Three sangheilis and another six unngoys and a few other things that looked like a strange cross between rat reptile and bird. A glimpse at their feral, intelligent minds and he learned they were known as Kig-Yar, he also learned that they were a particularly bloodthirsty, brutal race, their fragile appearance notwithstanding.

Settling into a relaxed but flexible battle stance, he raised the strange blaster weapon at his opponents. Bemoaning his fate for being forced into using such an uncivilised weapon would have to wait for later, as the entire group opened fire at him. He ducked and weaved over the bolts, but it was tough going without any cover. Firing back, he discovered that the sangheilis' armour was also shielded, so his accurate shots were taking time to penetrate.

He managed to take out 3 unngoys, a blue sangheili and all of the jackals despite their wrist shields before taking a hit. A blue bolt of plasma struck his left arm and he screamed in shock at it burnt a hole into his bicep. The molten liquid clung to his flesh as it ate it's way through, trapping the heat underneath. He dropped his blaster, falling to his knees as his body started going into shock. As the sangheili approached, he summoned his focus and used the force to push them all back into the wall. The force aided him in removing the plasma and he started feeding healing energy into the wound.

Forcing himself to keep moving, he staggered out of the room into a corridor. Not knowing where to go, he followed his instinct and headed where his feet took him. He clung to the shadows where possible and managed to avoid several patrols rushing to apprehend him. He reached a large room that looked like a hangar of some sort, but it was at this point he was discovered. One of the commanding officers sealed all the doors in the room. Trapped and greatly outnumbered, it didn't take long for the forces to corner him. A second plasma shot to his thigh sent him crashing to the ground in pain and he was too slow to avoid a kick to the chest from on of the sangheilis. Several bold unggoys took the opportunity to beat him into near unconsciousness before a white armoured sangheili stopped them.

"Filthy nishum," it spat at him "take him to a new cell and make sure he can't escape again, no more distractions will be tolerated." the sangheili ordered. Obi Wan didn't understand the language, but he understood the intent behind the words. This sangheili hated him for existing, his very presence offending the alien. The unggoys jumped to comply with the order and forced energy binders onto his wrists before dragging Obi Wan, with an escort of two sangheili away through the corridors to a new cell. This one wasn't any different from the last, except the unggoys left the binders on his wrists when they threw him into the cell.

Obi Wan almost happily slipped back into the darkness of unconsciousness to escape the acute pain from his new injuries.

* * *

><p>The sangheili known as Thel 'Vadamee, Supreme Commander of the Fleet tasked with the human extermination campaign looked over his reports. The battle for the human planet Reach was nearly won, the planet was already burning in places and the rest would soon follow. The information about the forerunner artifact would soon be in his grasp and then the world could truly be cleansed. Tactically, there was little to do at this moment, the human fleet was near decimated and only pockets of resistance remained.<p>

It was a shame that the humans had to be cleansed he mused to himself, if there were more like this human and those spartans he'd heard reports of down on the planet Reach, the human race would make a decent addition to the Covenant forces. Thel 'Vadamee was an honourable warrior, and after leading the war against the tenacious humans for the past several years, they had long won his respect with their skills at winning ground battles and their ability to damage significant amounts of his fleet. Despite being less advanced, having less numbers and being weaker physically, the humans kept fighting, he _liked_ humans as his enemy. They had a strange sort of honour and he'd seen many examples of individuals sacrificing themselves to allow time for comrades to escape. He'd even seen this with their civilians. That however did leave a bad taste, there was little sport to be had hunting _children._ The thoughts were pushed into the back of his mind, it wasn't his place to question the Hierarchs.

His thoughts turned to the strange human who remained a captive despite his earlier escape attempt. The trail of both dead and unconscious bodies told an impressive tale about the human's surprising strength. Thel's instincts about this human had been correct, this was a warrior of rare and impressive skill. It made the fight where they first captured him look ridiculous in comparison. He briefly wondered how the human would fight with the weapon they'd confiscated from him.

Not that it mattered, the human wouldn't escape again. Whatever luck allowed him to be get away in the first place wouldn't occur twice. He keyed in the order for the human to be transferred to another of his ships while still unconscious. The facilities there were more equipped to handle prisoners. The ship, Truth and Reconciliation was the only one in his fleet that was involved in the distasteful practice of interrogation. He'd received the strange order directly from High Charity that this human was to be kept alive, so comply with those orders he did.

* * *

><p>When Obi Wan yet again struggled back to consciousness. He groaned as aching limbs reminded him of his injuries. He vaguely remembered being moved at some point, his wounds treated along the way. They were still sore, although he knew the Force would have him healed soon. Whatever medical treatment he'd received had been sufficient. The energy binders were still attached to his wrists, forcing his arms behind his back. His shoulders were painfully protesting the enforced position. Gingerly, he rolled to his feet, careful to not tear open the tender healing burns on both legs. They felt a little like lightsaber burns, injuries he was familiar with, so he knew how to direct the Force to help with the healing now he was awake. It would probably be a couple of days before they were fully healed, but patience was a skill he'd long learned.<p>

Glad that he had maintained his condition to keep himself flexible, Obi Wan relaxed his muscles, concentrating. Then with a calculated jump, he brought his arms under his legs, to rest in front of him instead. With the state of his injuries, the move wouldn't have been possible without the Force, and he sat back down, breathing hard. His shoulders immediately started screaming in protest as the strained tendons were relaxed and blood flooded back to starved tissue. Obi Wan focused on regulating the pain, sending it to the Force and working his shoulders back into life. He then decided a nap was well deserved, and drifted into a more natural sleep in a corner of his bare cell.

When he next woke, it was to one of the little unggoys bringing him some water and food again. While there was the temptation to try escaping again, he felt the hum of the ship and could feel that they were moving very fast. From the Force he could feel that they were in something similar to hyperspace, although again, the Force gave him a few different signals so it was some form of travel similar yet likely different to hyperspace travel.

Even if he escaped, you can't leave a ship while it is in hyperspace and he guessed that would be the same here. He resigned himself to patience. Eating the food and conserving energy.

On his flagship, Seeker of Truth, Thel 'Vadamee was angry. The humans had thwarted his forces attempts at retrieving the Forerunner data and destroyed the facility. A small ship had escaped the Forerunner ruins on Reach and joined the battle cruiser The Pillar of Autumn before entering slipspace. He'd ordered twelve of his ships in pursuit, leaving the rest of his fleet to finish off Reach. His subordinates knew their mission, and his priority was the information. He was outraged at the desecration of sacred Forerunner technology. His ships were faster than the human ones, he would trap the ship at the other end of space, capture it, rip out any important information before blasting it into oblivion!

The next few days were distinctly unpleasant for Obi Wan. One of the guards had taken to taunting him, a particularly brutish sangheili warrior that enjoyed parading his lightsaber in front of him while ordering some unggoys to soften him up. Obi Wan bore the treatment stoically, he was happy to bide his time waiting to escape now he knew where his lightsaber was. He'd had worse bruises from sparring workouts with Anakin, so the unggoys efforts, while painful, were only superficial in the damage. He made sure to play up the damage though, letting his guards underestimate him, with no thought of the threat the 'weak' human represented. They were rather ignorant about humans, he mused. Any species he was familiar with would know that humans didn't normally heal as fast as he had been doing.

Not that he would be letting them know about any of his advantages any time soon.

When the ship finally dropped out of slipspace a couple of days later, Obi Wan was itching to move. Something in the Force indicated that he should wait a little bit longer. Used to listening to the Force's guidance, he complied and settled, trying to meditate to find out what exactly he was waiting for. He didn't have to wait long.

Maybe an hour later he was alerted by a sudden presence approaching his cell. This wasn't his regular guard. He could hear a sangheili speaking and was unsurprised when a tall sangheili arrived in front of his cell. It had golden armour coverings, a colour he'd not yet seen over gray/brown skin. The Force nudged him forward, and he realised that it wanted him to meet this particular alien. Getting up he approached the cell's entryway, looking up at the sangheili that towered over him at nearly 7.5 feet.

The sangheili appeared unarmed, although Obi Wan knew this to be a false observation. He suspected the curved piece of metal hanging at his waist to be some sort of weapon. The sangheili radiated menace as it looked at him. Although he sensed that the creature didn't hate him, he could again feel the disgust, as though being human was offensive to it. The alien spoke again, but Obi Wan didn't understand and so remained silent.

The alien huffed in annoyance before switching to English, which surprised Obi Wan as he'd yet to meet one that understood Basic.

"You are the luckiest yet most unfortunate human _nishum_ I've had the displeasure of having aboard my ship." the accent was one he'd never heard before, the inflections on the words were all wrong and some letters weren't pronounced well. He supposed that the aliens mouth wasn't adapted to the same sounds as the human tongue.

"I think I agree with you on that point, I often experience both extremes of fortune," he replied conversationally.

The alien twitched, and from the Force he got a sense that the alien was surprised at his response.

"You are different from other humans I've encountered," it stated, "you wear no armour, yet I know you are a warrior. You fought well despite your injuries" the alien sounded reluctantly impressed

"I'm sorry I don't quite remember fighting too well at all, I was overconfident. I assure you that I won't be so easy to capture next time" he answered and the sangheili made a strange sound that he quickly realised was laughter.

"You won't be escaping again human. I've been ordered to have you interrogated and when we are done with the ship that escaped the destruction of your planet Reach, you will be transferred to High Charity." the alien in front of him said this with no emotion, yet the Force rippled, showing his disgust at the word 'interrogate.' Obi Wan didn't know why it was disgusted at the thought of interrogating him and as he didn't know any planet named Reach or what 'High Charity' was in reference to so he saw no harm in asking

"Why do you dislike the thought of interrogating me?" he asked

The alien gave him a measured look. The quiet stretched so long that Obi Wan thought he wasn't going to answer, before he answered

"Our species may be at war, but I am Sangheili and those opponents who fight with honour should be treated with it. You should be killed, not forced to die by inches as my superiors now demand." there was a vehement honesty about him as he said that. Obi Wan's respect for the sangheili grew, although he was glad not to be dead, there would be no opportunities to escape if he was dead.

"What can I call you?" he asked the Sangheili

"There is no need for you to know my name, human, but you may know my rank, I am the Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice,"

"Thank you, well I suppose if I'm to be interrogated, I shouldn't reveal anything to you and make your jobs easier, but my name is Obi Wan Kenobi. Supreme Commander, and though I can't say that in the circumstances that it was nice to meet you it has definitely been an interesting conversation."

Obi Wan had to hide a smile as he got the feeling that the elite was scowling at his casual tone. He sensed that the Commander was irritated by his lack of fear at his situation and lack of appropriate awe for the Sangheili's rank. Stifling a laugh that would likely enrage his captor, Obi Wan kept his Sabacc face on, releasing his excess amusement to the force.

"We most likely won't meet again human, hope to die quickly, the Kig-Yar have some barbaric customs." the Sangheili said before leaving beyond Obi Wan's range of sight from his cell.

"Well then, lets get on with my escape so I can finally try and figure out where in the galaxy I've ended up," Obi Wan said quietly to himself.

Glossary:

The Unifying Force: an aspect of the Force that involves space and time. A Central concept to the Jedi beliefs on the Force.

nishum: Elite language word meaning 'parasitic worm.'

sangheili: Elite name for themselves

Sabecc: Star war universe game involving gambling, like poker and has synonymous phrases.

Basic: the standard language across the Star Wars galaxy.

Kig-yar: Covenant name for the jackals.

lekgolo: covenant hunters

unggoy: Covenant grunts

san 'shyuum: covenant prophet

Notes: The 'Seeker of Truth' was the Flagship of the Covenant fleet, the 'Fleet of Particular Justice' and were responsible for the fall of Reach and the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The Fleet's supreme commander Thel' Vadamee is the Elite who eventually becomes known as the Arbiter. I will try to keep my information to known canon where I can but I will make deliberate changes where I want to fit with my story.


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